Murray Rankin: Government falling short of real oversight for C-51 powers

People rally against Bill C-51, the Tory government's anti-terror legislation.Justin Tang / THE CANADIAN PRESS

Last year, former prime minister Stephen Harper’s Bill C-51 brought in controversial new security powers, despite the opposition of hundreds of thousands of Canadians and the advice of legal scholars and civil liberties organizations. Resisting calls from the NDP and others to repeal the law, the Liberal government has kept C-51 on the books.

Under the legislation, the sharing of personal information between government agencies was expanded, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service was given unprecedented powers to disrupt terrorist plots and a range of perceived security threats, the right of police to preventatively arrest people was expanded, and urging others to commit terrorism became a criminal offence.

Now, Parliament is debating a proposal to plug a longstanding gap in our security architecture: Canada today stands alone among our closest allies in lacking independent, elected oversight of security and intelligence agencies.

Unfortunately, the government’s plan falls short of giving Canadians a real watchdog for their rights and safety. Bill C-22 would create a committee without the powers, the independence and the public trust needed to get the job done. The prime minister and cabinet would appoint its members, handpick its head, control the information it receives, block investigations into certain areas, and revise its reports without notifying Parliament and the public.

As with the case of C-51, concerns about C-22 have come from across the political spectrum. The head of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association has warned that the bill doesn’t go far enough to protect Canadians’ Charter rights, and eminent security experts Ron Atkey, Kent Roach and Craig Forcese have expressed their shared concerns about the committee’s limited powers and independence from the Prime Minister’s Office.

Effective oversight will make Canadians safer, better protect their Charter rights, and bolster their faith in the security and intelligence services. Ineffective oversight will waste time and money without making us safer or freer. It’s time, then, for all parties to work together to fix C-22.

Through amendments developed in consultation with security and civil liberties experts, and shared with all parties, the NDP is offering a constructive overhaul of the government’s bill.

Our plan would grant the oversight committee complete access to information, freedom to investigate any security activity without ministerial interference, and the power to subpoena necessary witnesses and documents. To ensure independence, we would allow the head of the committee to be elected — and drawn from an opposition party — rather than selected by the government.

These amendments build on lessons learned by our allies. Britain, for example, moved to an elected head of the oversight committee after public concerns about its effectiveness. Canada can and should set a new gold standard for accountability and transparency amongst our allies.

The NDP amendments also offer two important benefits to Canadians.

First, our plan includes a “whistleblowing duty” to immediately report any suspected violations of the law or of Canadians’ rights to the Attorney General and the Prime Minister. With CSIS’s power to violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms still the law of the land, this is a vital duty for the committee to uphold.

Second, our plan offers greater transparency by ensuring that when the Prime Minister exercises his power to remove information from the committee’s reports, Canadians can see exactly where, and how much, information was revised or redacted.

Adopting these amendments to Bill C-22 would give Canadians a truly world-class watchdog of their security and rights, while ensuring that classified information remains secure. With Harper’s Bill C-51 still on the books, Canadians of all political stripes are right in demanding nothing less.

NDP House Leader Murray Rankin has served as legal counsel to the Security Intelligence Review Committee and as a Special Advocate in classified immigration proceedings.

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